Smoky Sweet Potato Hash

Breakfast in the week is a rush job. It’s something like a quickly blended smoothie enjoyed on the go, some kind of gluten free granola or porridge eaten a bit too fast, or something even worse like a gluten free breakfast biscuit. I don’t have to leave the house until 8am for work but I still find it too difficult to get up any earlier than quarter past 7. The weekend is different though. I get up a little later and take things slow. I still have a lot of smoothies but I enjoy them slowly while I read or watch some TV with my boyfriend. And then there are those days where I feel like a nice cooked brunch.

I had fallen out with sweet potatoes until recently. I kept buying them and they kept going off really fast before I had chance to feel like eating them. I have to be in the mood to eat sweet potato after I went a little crazy and had them all the time. I must have wasted about 3 bags of them this year already, so I was determined to use them up before they went bad this time.

I wasn’t sure what to title this recipe as I believe hash is an American thing but hash works for me. I was more interested in the bright colours here. The more colours in your food (I’m talking colourful fruit and veg, not artificially added junk), the better it is for you, assuming you don’t cook it to death. Now I don’t like the idea of raw sweet potato so forgive me for cooking it, but I started with a light steam so it could be worse.

I’m going to put my hands up and admit I love bacon but there is no bacon here. Infact this recipe is completely vegan and gluten free. Smoked paprika provides the smoky flavour and complements the sweet potato and peppers perfectly. I had this last sunday with a fried egg on top (sorry vegans) and then I had the leftovers tossed with some cooked quinoa for my lunch at work the following day. It was actually still really good cold with the quinoa.

Steam or boil the potato chunks until only slightly undercooked. Heat up the oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes. Add in the potato chunks and sliced red pepper, along with the seasonings. Saute for about 10 minutes, until the peppers have softened but are not limp, and the potato has started to take on a little colour.

Alternatively, you could bake this without precooking the potatoes. You would just have to watch that the garlic doesn’t burn, but you would have less washing up and you could leave it to cook while you got on with something else.

For low FODMAP you would need to omit the garlic, onion and cabbage. In there place you could use spinach and flavour with something like thyme. You could even sauté some chopped celery for extra flavour. It might be that you can tolerate chives if not onions, so you could chop and sprinkle some over the dish at the end.